Tao Sun

Sponsored by DOE-NNSA, our team will work with colleagues at Colorado School of Mines and UC Santa Barbara to fundamentally understand high-temperature and fast loading rate responses of metastable microstructures in metallic alloys with novel experimental and computational tools and unique probes.

Sponsored by NASA, our team will work with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon Univ, Johns Hopkins Univ, Vanderbilt Univ, University of Texas at San Antonio, Case Western Reserve Univ, JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, Southwest Research Institute, and Pratt & Whitney to develop digital twins for metal additive manufacturing processes.

We developed an approach for localized detection of keyhole pore generation in LPBF with 100% prediction rate and submillisecond temporal resolution. The unique keyhole oscillation behavior generates high-frequency temperature fluctuation, which can be captured by high-speed thermal imaging aided by machine learning.

Congratulation to Lin Gao for winnning 2023 TMS Best Paper Contest - Graduate - 1st Place! Lin is working on microstructure control of structural alloys using wire laser directed energy deposition.

Components made by laser powder bed fusion sometimes come off the printer with tiny voids trapped in the metal as it hardens. Researchers are on their way to fully determining the causes of these voids. Keith Button spoke to the researcher whose imaging technique has been key to the progress.

Two Related Discoveries Advance Basic and Applied Additive Manufacturing Research

A research team led by TAO SUN, associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia, has made

X-ray imaging of a manufacturing technique has captured the formation of molten metal projectiles that produce imperfections.

Team identified how and when gas pockets (a.k.a. keyhole) form in laser powder bed fusion, as well as a methodology to predict their formation — information that could dramatically improve the 3D printing process.

Researchers performed high-speed synchrotron x-ray imaging experiments on metal additive manufacturing, which provide a vital insights into the fundamental mechanisms at work.

Infrared ahead

The addition of a new infrared camera at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source narrows the gap between basic and applied research in additive manufacturing.

For the first time, scientists peered inside materials formed by 3-D printing in real-time as the laser molded the metal powders into shapes.